


Binary Sunset

by callunavulgari



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ballet, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-16
Updated: 2016-10-16
Packaged: 2018-08-22 17:06:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8293418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/pseuds/callunavulgari
Summary: Center stage, Rey holds herself as still as a statue. Spine straight, toes pointed, already in first position. They’ve done something to her eyelashes, softened all her hard edges, from the jut of her jaw to the point of her nose. She glitters, from her feathered bodice to her flowing skirts, a bright glint of white in the dark.He doesn’t think that anyone else has noticed that she’s trembling.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [antistar_e (kaikamahine)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaikamahine/gifts).



> The prompt was for Reylo, "things you said when you were scared." I got it way back in August, but since I've been going through the driest of all dry spells I decided to pick it back up sometime last week to ease myself into writing something. I crashed and burned, rewriting the same 200 word scene for two hours before I gave up and remembered a thing that said if you were having a hard time with something, write in another point of view. It helped. A little. I still only got 400 words in before I gave up. 
> 
> Tonight I decided to try one more time. Why ballet, you ask? I was listening to a pretty awesome waltz when I was trying to figure out what I wanted to write and said, hey, Heather. What if The Force Awakens was a ballet. What would that be like?

The stage is absolute chaos. Dancers flit back and forth across it like startled birds, leaving the smell of rosewater and hairspray in their wake. Costumes are repeatedly smoothed, makeup retouched, hair pinned meticulously in place.

There’s the stifled whispers of conversation all around him, a low hiss that raises the hair on the back of his neck. It’s more animal than the steady murmur he can feel from beyond the curtain, where their guests are slowly making their way to the seats.

More hairspray, someone whisper-yells across the stage, voice soaked through with anxiety. More bobby pins! More taffeta, one of the stormtroopers have a tear! Someone get Phasma a cough drop!

For a moment, Ben hears his mother’s voice clearly through the chaos. A moment later, it’s gone, leaving him wondering if he’d imagined it. Surely she isn’t backstage. This ballet may be of her creation, but she’d left it in the competent hands of her brother. Uncle Luke is the one rushing to and fro in the madness. She’ll be in the stands, with the investors and the politicians. Maybe with his father if he’d bothered to show.

Ben pays it no mind, his attention caught and snagged by the girl standing in the center of it all, the one still point in this hurricane of activity.

Center stage, Rey holds herself as still as a statue. Spine straight, toes pointed, already in first position. They’ve done something to her eyelashes, softened all her hard edges, from the jut of her jaw to the point of her nose. She glitters, from her feathered bodice to her flowing skirts, a bright glint of white in the dark.

He doesn’t think that anyone else has noticed that she’s trembling.

The clock against the far wall says that they have five minutes until curtains go up. That’ll have to do, Ben thinks, and starts to push his way through the crowd.

She doesn’t even blink when he comes to a stop next to her, her eyes boring a hole through the curtain.

For a moment, Ben hesitates.

He’s always been something of a loner, but in this company his reputation is prickly at best. To these people he’s nothing more than the spoiled son of the great Leia Organa, the leading role of her new ballet practically gift-wrapped for him after he'd crashed and burned in Russia. Never mind the fact that it isn’t even truly the lead. Never mind the fact that he’d worked for this role. Luke wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Rey has been with them for months and Ben’s barely spoken a word to her.

He knows the weight of her body in his arms, the press of her breasts and thighs and warm toned stomach. He knows the noises she makes when she’s content or frustrated, knows the pride that sparks in her eyes when she’s done something right.

He knows that she dances like she’s trying to win a fight, with passion and steel.

But he doesn’t know her. She’s his mother’s protege, not his. It isn’t his responsibility to make sure she doesn’t choke on opening night.

Gently, he reaches out to touch her hand. She startles, jumping as if burned when his hand brushes hers, and spins to look at him, chest heaving. He’s been dancing professionally since he was old enough to walk; he knows what panic looks like. Knows what it looks like when someone wants to run.

“Hey,” he says quietly, stroking gently with his thumb before pulling back. “You’ll do great.”

She eyes him with narrow-eyed suspicion, a pucker appearing between her brows. He wants to smooth it out with his thumb.

After a long moment, her shoulders relax, and she says, with uncharacteristic reluctance, “You think so?”

He nods, hard and fast, and thinks about asking her out for coffee afterwards. Coming down from their performance high in a little shop somewhere that smells like warm cinnamon and nutmeg. The way her face would glow in the light of a fire. How the flush wouldn’t leave her face for ages, between the performance and the frosty air outside. He’s seen the way she laughs, with her nose crinkled and her eyes squeezed shut, and wouldn’t mind seeing it up close for a change.

Ben licks his lips, a shock of fear thrumming through his veins. He tries for a smile and hopes it doesn’t come out a grimace. He’s out of practice.

“You’re a wonderful dancer,” he tells her, packing as much sincerity as he can into the words. “I had my doubts at first, but my mother was right about you. With the right teacher, you’ll go far.”

She frowns doubtfully, taking a step backwards; away from him.

“The right teacher?” she asks, a bite to her words, and he opens his mouth to say something - anything - when someone calls to take their places.

Ben watches her bite back her temper, shooting him one last narrow-eyed look before schooling her face into statuesque stillness once more. Reluctantly, he leaves her, taking his place in the shadows of the stage. He has scenes in the first act, but their characters don’t even come in contact with each other until just before the intermission.

Their dance itself isn’t until near the end.

The first notes from the orchestra burst into existence, startlingly loud in the silence of the theater. Rey’s shoulders tense, but then, as the curtain begins to rise, she lets go of her fear, going loose-limbed and pliant all over.

The music swells, louder and louder, and just as it's reaching its climax, Rey swings into motion.

.

“I didn’t mean anything by what I said before,” Ben explains to her as a stagehand applies powder to their cheeks.

It’s intermission and his character has just kidnapped hers, stealing her away from the light and whisking her into the darkness. They’ll open the next act with an interrogation and then it’ll go fast from there, until everything finally culminates in that one dance amongst the bare-boned, snow-dusted trees.

His costume itches, the dark fabric damp with sweat.

She raises one extremely unimpressed brow and he winces. “Okay, nothing bad. My uncle is great at what he does, but-”

“He isn’t the best,” she finishes, looking at him carefully.

He nods, relieved. “Exactly.”

“Good.” She shrugs, flinching when the woman repinning her costume accidentally sticks her. “I don’t want the best.”

“You-” he pauses, trying to comprehend that. His whole life has been dedicated to living up to his name, being better than the greats - his mother and his uncle, his grandfather and grandmother - dancing is in the Skywalker’s blood. Ben’s studied in Russia, in Prague, in Paris. He’d only come back to this company in the end because he had nowhere else to go-

He licks his lips. “What do you want?”

She shrugs again, but this one looks half-hearted, reluctant, as if she’s just realized she isn’t getting out of this conversation without letting go of some uncomfortable truth. She licks her lips, fidgeting as she glances at the stagehand fluttering around them both and then darting quickly around the rest of the room.

“A family,” she says quietly, with a careful yearning in her voice. “I want a company that cares more about its people than how much money we can make them. Your mother convinced me that this would be a good fit.”

Ben stares at her.

Her face is open and honest, brown eyes wide, glitter on her skin.

He’s worked with dozens of dancers over the years, all of them motivated by the sheer desire to dance, yes, after all, it’s hard to fake that sort of passion, but always there’s been an underlying desire to be great. Money, fame, fortune, their name in the lights.

Family. He’s never heard that one before.

He thinks about the friends that she’s made - Finn, Poe, Jessika - all the people that he’s never made an effort to know, because he didn’t think it mattered. Why make this place a home when it was only ever a stop gap? A place to roost while he got his feet back under him.

But now…

She is extraordinary, captivating, and he-

He wants to see her smile up close.

“Do you want to get a coffee afterwards,” he asks in a rush, an unsteady lilt to his voice. He clears his throat, clenching his hands into fists so she doesn’t see the way they’re shaking.

She blinks, and stares at him, hard, as if she’s trying to see through to his core. That narrow-eyed look of suspicion is back, and he’s sure that she’s going to say no-

“Sure.” She nods slowly, still staring him down like she’s expecting a trick. “Coffee. And… a pastry?”

He nods helplessly back. He’d probably buy her a hundred pastries if she asked for them. Maybe she sees that in his eyes because she amends, “Or maybe six pastries? I’m usually pretty hungry after a show.”

The post-show high usually lasts long enough for him to eat his weight in food before he ends up crashing for the next eight hours.

“We could just do dinner,” he muses, already calling to mind a list of places that he could get them into last minute on a Saturday night. He frowns. “Wait, are you a wine drinker or a beer drinker?”

“I’m a hot chocolate drinker,” she tells him, so earnestly that he loses his train of thought.

He’s still staring at her when the three minute warning is called.

“Hot chocolate,” he says dumbly, already moving in the direction of the stage.

“And food,” she adds seriously, keeping pace with him as they mount the stage together. He gets into position without thinking, wrapping a careful arm around her.

“And food,” he says, nodding. The orchestra is playing something lighthearted and hopeful, but he knows in a moment it will sour, going sinister and slow as the lights around them dim. Their first dance is all evasive action, she’ll dance away and he’ll chase, they’ll come together and apart again and again in dizzying spirals before she sends his character reeling.

Their last dance is passionate. Rage and violence and bared teeth. The audience will either love it or hate it.

She smirks at him, all the fear gone from her now, and pats his cheek. “I’m sure we’ll figure something out.”

The music swells.

They move.

 

 

 


End file.
